


And so the vampire fell in love with Frankenstein

by scissorphishe



Category: You Belong With Me - University of Rochester Yellowjackets (Music Video)
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scissorphishe/pseuds/scissorphishe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Devon likes dancing, werewolves, and Ed. Ed likes dancing, baseball, and Devon. Neither likes head injuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And so the vampire fell in love with Frankenstein

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/gifts).



> Dear Yuletide recipient -- via AO3 and LJ-stalking, I have gathered that your head-canon names for Glasses Guy and Jock Guy are Devon and Ed, respectively, so I hope it's okay that I used those names in this story.

The new family moves into the house next to Devon’s halfway through junior year. His mom says they have a boy and a girl the same ages as Devon and Jenna (a junior and senior, respectively), but Devon never actually sees either of them for a week.

The first sign he sees of the guy is a moving box. It's sitting on top of the desk in the room facing Devon's, and he can read the label on the side of the box: _ED'S ROOM_ , green marker scrawled on cardboard.

And then a guy his age -- Ed, presumably -- walks in, carrying another box, and starts to unpack it.

Devon doesn't really know why he does it -- just his weird, socially awkward, spur-of-the-moment way of introducing himself, he supposes -- but he writes _DEVON'S ROOM_ on a piece of paper and tapes it to his window, writing facing the house next door. After a minute, the guy -- Ed, Devon reminds himself -- glances out the window and catches sight of Devon's sign. He looks straight at Devon and smiles broadly. A colony of tiny acrobats sets up camp in Devon's stomach. Then Ed rummages through one of the boxes, retrieves a pen and paper, and a minute later holds up a sign of his own: _NICE TO MEET YOU!_

Devon writes back, _YOU TOO!_ , relieved that Ed is gamely going along with this unorthodox introduction. 

Ed disappears for a minute, returns with a big stack of paper, and gives Devon another smile that seems to say, _We're just getting started._

And they’re off.

***

“Oh my god, you Luddites,” Jenna says when she sees. “Here you have a computer and a shiny futuristic smartphone, and you’re sitting here with markers and pieces of paper. You are totally ruining our generation’s reputation for technology addiction.”

“You can thank me by handing me a new marker, this one’s running out of ink,” Devon says distractedly, in the midst of scribbling a new message, and Jenna throws up her hands.

“When I was your age, we had to _call_ each other on _landlines_.”

“If by ‘call’ you mean ‘text’ and by ‘landline’ you mean ‘iPhone 3,’” says Devon. “Anyway, Ed likes old-fashioned stuff.”

“I presume you will be conducting your courtship by quill and ink correspondence, then? Or is that too newfangled? Will it be cuneiform and clay tablets?”

Devon throws the marker at her. “It’s not a _courtship_ ,” he says. He makes sure to turn his face away from the window, just in case Ed can read lips. You never know. He seems to be unusually knowledgeable about a lot of unexpected things.

 _COOUURRTT SHIIIIP_ , Jenna mouths at the window (reading his mind creepily well, as usual). “He’s not even in the room anymore, Devon, jeez. You know I wouldn’t tell him, that’s your job. Get on that, by the way.”

Devon grabs the nearest piece of paper and scrawls a big _I LOVE YOU_ on it. “Happy now?”

“I will be the day you show it to him,” Jenna says cheerfully. “Although that day should probably not be this day. Have you ever even talked to him in person?"

"Not yet," Devon admits.

"Scratch that, maybe it should be this day," says Jenna. "Or else, knowing you, you're going to be eighty and still pining from afar." She makes a playful grab for the "I LOVE YOU" sign, and Devon quickly crumples it up and throws it in the trash. 

"Go, before you ruin my potential love life," he says, and Jenna laughs at him all the way out the door.

He sits there for a minute waiting to see if Ed will come back, but nothing happens. So he goes to the door, opens it, checks that Jenna’s really gone, and shuts the door firmly again.

Then he retrieves the “I LOVE YOU” sign from the trash, uncrumples it, and hides it carefully in his underwear drawer.

Just in case.

***

So, yeah, Devon has a cute guy living next door. And they chat in a weird, Luddite, environmentally-unfriendly sort of way. But if Devon had to pinpoint the moment it _really_ started, it would have to be the biology field trip that year. They’re too old for field trips, really, but the bio kids complained about the physics kids getting to go to the amusement park to do “research” on roller coasters, and it's right before break, after all.

So they get bussed off to the aquarium, and the first thing everyone sees is the stingrays, and -- it’s kind of ridiculous, but Devon’s heart catches in his throat. And they’re, just -- they’re stingrays, you know? Weird flat pancake-fish with venomous tails. Not exactly the most romantic creatures around. But, god, the way they _move_ , like water itself, like air, like they live in some alien dimension where friction doesn’t exist and there’s nothing but endless fluid motion. Effortless, too, just a faint ripple of the crepe-thin edges of their bodies, as if ruffled by a gentle underwater breeze. Motion like breathing. Devon has been klutzy since he was one year old, tried to take his first steps, collided with a piano bench, and ended up with a scar that doesn’t even look cool because it’s hidden by his hair. (He tried shaving his head once. Once. Jenna still has the pictures locked in a safe -- an actual, literal safe, speaking of Luddites -- so he can’t destroy the best blackmail she’s ever had. Suffice to say: never, ever again.) He is of the opinion that stingrays are vastly underrated.

He looks around for his classmates, but they've all moved on already. "Devon, over here!" Chris calls to him. 

"Meet you in a minute," he calls back, and turns back to the stingrays, this time alone.

Which is when he notices Ed. Ed is standing pressed up against the wall of the tank, uncharacteristically still, as if all his energy has been channeled from motion to sight. Devon moves toward him, and it's only when he nudges Ed gently in the arm, not wanting to break the silence, that Ed turns to look at him.

"Hey," he breathes. He looks at Devon with a funny little half-smile, looking just as enchanted as Devon feels. Devon trips over his own feet (which probably has something to do with Ed smiling at him), and then looks half-sheepishly and half-longingly at Ed and the stingrays. He doesn't have to say it; he knows Ed understands.

"I bet we all look like that next to them," Ed says, not unkindly, and hesitates. "When I'm deep in a game and everything's going just right, that's what it feels like. Or I imagine it does, but that seems embarrassingly wrong now that I see -- I mean, just look at them move, that's not--"

"I know," says Devon.

"Just imagine if we really were like them, imagine a baseball game with these guys!" Ed says, sounding genuinely and adorably excited. "Imagine them flying around the bases and sliding into home--"

Devon laughs, even though he's not entirely sure what "sliding into home" would entail, and not just for stingrays. Ed must see the confusion on his face, because he starts explaining sliding, and lots of other weird things like "bunting" and "double plays," and how cool they would be with a stingray baseball team, and it is all generally dorktastic and nonsensical and utterly delightful. Much like Ed himself, Devon thinks, who is no longer just the cute guy next door he talks to sometimes, but the guy who's not afraid to get his dork on, who doesn't leave Devon behind, who understands about unattainable animal grace and even, despite his athleticism, the inadequacy and awkwardness of one's own skin. 

 _Devon_ , says the little voice in the back of his mind, the one that speaks uncomfortable truths and sounds a little too much like Jenna, _you are officially screwed._

***

So, okay, humans are awkward, and Devon more so than many. That doesn’t mean he can’t have a secret dancing hobby. One of these days he will probably give himself a concussion or something, but, well, music is just so catchy, and when he’s alone with no one watching...

It’s also a pick-me-up when life sucks. A week after the stingrays, Devon hears from Chris that Ed is dating this girl Caitlin from his English class. He would normally reserve judgment, because there are always rumors, and the worst ones are always the made-up ones (aren't they?), but literally ten minutes later he passes Ed in the hall with his arm around Caitlin's waist and his lips on her hair.

Devon flees. Thankfully (or perhaps not), Ed is too busy with Caitlin to notice.

After school he goes straight to his room, locks the door, cranks the music up, and _dances_. The music is appropriately sappy, angsty melodrama, and he lip-synchs sappily and angstily and melodramatically into his hairbrush; he vamps tragically for the mirror; he soulfully air-guitars so hard he almost falls off his bed. He throws his arms up and rolls his spine and shakes his hips because he's all alone and the music drowns out everything and he might as well have one happy thing in his day, and this is it.

And it is -- it stops being his potentially happy thing and starts being his actually happy thing. After a while it's hard not to at least smile when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror looking truly ludicrous. The music and the movement start to un-tense his shoulders, unknot his chest, and he lets the music go to shuffle and, as if it's sentient, it stops playing angsty melodrama and starts playing the happiest songs he has.  

It's on one of the wilder dance moves that he catches something out of the corner of his eye. He half-turns, still dancing, to see what it is, and -- _oh_. He freezes mid-shimmy. Ed is home, in his room, staring straight at Devon. 

And grinning the happiest, sweetest, most genuinely delighted grin Devon's ever seen. 

Ed clicks something on his computer, and, through both their windows and the intervening space, Devon can hear music starting up. It's the exact song Devon has on, and it even comes in at exactly the same verse. Ed looks at him, still grinning, and throws himself into a dance even wilder, if possible, than Devon's was. He's not making fun of Devon -- it's a total and obvious gesture of friendship and unrestrained joy. After a moment, Devon joins in again, not quite able to contain his own embarrassingly huge smile.

And that's how Jenna finds them, two hours later, when she comes into Devon's room to find the book he borrowed -- rocking out, alone but not really, competing with Ed for the campiest dance moves, sweaty, breathless and laughing.

It's going to be okay, Devon thinks. The world just can't be all that sad. Not if they can dance like this.

***

Ed has a knack for appearing out of nowhere, in a totally innocent way. He's not a stalker (and it's not like Ed would stalk Devon anyway); he's just really good at unwittingly taking Devon by surprise. Devon has a love-hate relationship with this tendency: he's always (a little too) happy to run into Ed, but he finds Ed's sudden appearances a little unsettling. (Of course, he finds Ed's mere presence a little unsettling.)

One day Devon's hanging out at the park with a book when Ed shows up, looking at Devon with that wonderful, awful grin that makes Devon's insides go all wobbly. He sits down next to Devon and nudges Devon's plaid-clad shoulder. “Hey,” he says, “you know how when people dress up in ‘80s costumes, or when you see a movie set in the ‘80s, there are all these stereotypical ‘80s things that tip you off about it _being_ an ‘80s costume or movie or whatever? Like you see a side ponytail or leg warmers and you immediately think ‘80s? Tie-dye for the sixties, and so on, right? I think when people are going start dressing up as ‘turn of the twenty-first century,’ the, like, sartorial shorthand is going to be plaid.”

Devon looks down at his plaid shirt and thinks that maybe, possibly, he should be insulted somehow, but he's actually just disproportionately charmed. Not to mention kind of turned on by the phrase “sartorial shorthand.”

“True story,” says Ed (because thankfully he seems to grasp intuitively that sometimes Devon just needs someone else to fill the space with friendly chatter), “one time I was in a game that was going really slow, ‘cause the other team never hit anything, so I was just hanging out in center field with nothing to do, and I started counting the number of people in the stands who were wearing plaid, just to pass the time. There were so many that I was still counting when the other team finally got a hit, and it, uh -- well, I wasn’t paying attention and it hit me in the head and I had to go to the hospital. After that I started wearing plaid all the time, to desensitize myself so it wouldn’t distract me again. Not that I needed it, probably, because after I basically beaned myself it was hard _not_  to be on my guard all the time, but anyway. At first I was kind of ambivalent about contributing to the plaidification of society, but then I realized that...I actually really like plaid. I just wish I hadn’t needed a really embarrassing head injury to figure that out.”

Devon laughs in surprise. “And here I thought your baseball skills were just inborn talent,” he teases. “I had no idea they were trauma-induced. Anyway, if you think that’s an embarrassing head injury, I once had to get stitches because I walked straight into a piano bench.”

Ed glances down at Devon’s shins, then looks back up in confusion. “Wait -- a _head_ injury?”

Devon smiles sheepishly. “My first steps ended in a visit to the E.R. I look like Frankenstein in my baby pictures.” He gestures at his head, tracing the line of the stitches.

Ed reaches out and gently brushes searching fingers through Devon’s hair. Devon promptly forgets how to breathe. Ed seems to be satisfied by what he finds; Devon is just trying really hard not to beam enormously. It turns out embarrassing head injuries pay off sometimes, even fifteen years later.

And then Ed’s gaze shifts from Devon to the street, where a car is pulling up in front of them. A car being driven by Caitlin.

Devon’s hair is suddenly woefully alone again. “See you later,” Ed says, rises, and disappears into the car. Or rather, Devon wishes he disappeared, because in fact he can see Ed and Caitlin way, way more clearly than he ever wanted to.

Mortifyingly, Caitlin, while in the throes of ensuring that no part of Ed’s face remains untouched by her mouth, manages to catch Devon staring at them, and shoots him a very special glare over Ed’s shoulder. Devon looks away and wishes it were Ed giving him a secret look over Caitlin’s shoulder instead.

On the bright side, not beaming enormously is no longer difficult.

***

Devon's in his room doing his Spanish homework, all alone since Ed left for baseball practice, when Jenna drops in. She nods toward the (now curtained) window and looks expectantly at Devon. “So, Devon Swan, how is the lovely Edward?”

Horrifyingly, Jenna has realized that the object of Devon’s affections shares a name with a certain sparkly vampire, and she takes a truly unreasonable amount of pleasure in highlighting this fact. The very worst part of this development is not that Devon is an actual Twilight fan and Jenna gets details wrong; it’s that Devon is secretly Team Jacob. (Although, seriously, he will tear his hair out if she proposes that Ed whisk him off to a romantic getaway in “Spoons, Washington” one more time.)

“Does that make Caitlin a werewolf?” Devon says grumpily. “Or just another vampire? ‘Cause either way, she can bite me.”

“Ha ha,” Jenna says dryly. “Look, Dev, I know she’s making out with the love of your life and everything, but apart from that she’s actually kind of cool.”

Devon scowls. “Last week she yelled at him and he’s still sad.”

Jenna raises an eyebrow. “Like you’re not happy it’s made them less close and you two closer,” she says, and _why_ does she have to be right all the time?

“And yesterday,” Devon presses on, “she made a face at me over his shoulder.”

“Yes, because you are _trying to steal her boyfriend_ ,” Jenna points out.

“She makes him unhappy!” Devon tries not to think about the look on Ed’s face through the window, the defeated hunch of his shoulders when he’s on the phone. It is a truly heartrending face, and a heartrending posture, respectively.

Jenna sighs. “Yeah, well, it’s mutual.” At Devon’s face she holds her hands up defensively. “Hey, chill -- I’m not insulting your Prince Charming, okay? You know I think he’s awesome and will totally be my brother-in-law someday.” She grins and wiggles her eyebrows at him; Devon rolls his eyes and tries to look anything but pleased. “I just wish they’d break up and he’d get with you already so he can stop moping to you about Caitlin, and you can stop moping to me. And Caitlin can stop moping to whoever she presumably mopes to.”

“For once,” says Devon, “I could not agree more.”

***

When dealing with unrequited love, some people watch rom-coms. Devon's treatment of choice is Disney movies, and he really doesn't care if sixteen-year-old boys aren't supposed to feel that way. When the boy you love has a girlfriend, and even secret solo dance parties don't cheer you up (because they just remind you of when you had a secret _non_ -solo dance party with said boy), the only solution is animated fairy-tale musicals.

So his current favorite daydream goes like this:

It will be prom night, and Ed will be gorgeous and dashing in a tux. He will ask Devon, via window-sign, if he’s going to the dance. Devon will say no, he has to study, and Ed will make a sad face and say he wishes Devon were going, and Devon will smile charmingly and apologetically, and Ed will leave Devon behind like Cinderella on the night of the ball. But then! Like Cinderella, Devon will receive some kind of fabulous makeover, and he will go to the ball -- er, prom -- after all, whereupon Ed will realize that they are meant to be together and will declare his undying love then and there. (Cinderella can keep the whole business with the shoe; Devon has no desire to try on a shoe that’s been worn by half the town already. That’s kind of gross.)

And in fact, when prom night actually rolls around, it does start out very much like this. Ed is indeed gorgeous and dashing and tuxedoed; he asks if Devon's going; Devon says no. But then Ed doesn't protest, just writes, _GOOD LUCK WITH THE STUDYING_ , and Devon writes back, _THANKS, HAVE FUN_ , and Ed waves good-bye and departs, leaving Devon all alone with no fairy godmother and no fabulous makeover and no fairy-tale ending.

He sighs, turns on comforting music, and tries to actually get some studying done. They're reading  _A Tale of Two Cities_  for English, and it's actually not a bad distraction. At least he's not imprisoned or headed for the guillotine. On the other hand, he may identify a little too much with the guy who loves a woman who marries someone else. God, that guy is depressing.

He's only halfway through the chapter he's supposed to read when the light in Ed's room goes on and Ed walks in. Which is kind of worrying, because it's weirdly early for him to be back already. Devon writes a message and tentatively holds it up to the window.

 _HOW WAS IT?_

Ed looks up, sees the sign, and gives him a look he can't quite figure out. Then the reply comes:

 _WE BROKE UP._

Devon’s heart gives a great leap and then forcibly restrains itself halfway through. He doesn’t want to celebrate if Ed is unhappy, and besides, he is absolutely _not_ going to get his hopes up.

He gives Ed a look of genuine sympathy and writes, _WHY? (if you want to talk about it)_. 

Ed holds up a finger:  _one minute_. He leaves the room, and Devon just kind of sits there, not sure how to feel or what to think. He hopes he hasn't offended Ed or anything, and that Ed will in fact come back.

The doorbell rings. Devon doesn't move. He wants to be sure to be there when Ed comes back, and his mom or Jenna can get it.

But then he remembers that neither of them are at home right now, and what if it's something important? So he tapes a sign to his window saying, _DOORBELL, SORRY, BACK SOON_ , and goes down to see who it is.

It turns out to be Ed. Devon pulls open the door as fast as he can and starts babbling. "Ed, I'm so sorry, are you okay, what happened?"

Ed silently holds up a sign, as if they're divided by windows again. Devon can't immediately decipher it in the low porch light, but then all of a sudden the marks resolve themselves into words.

 _I LOVE YOU._  

Devon can't breathe. He grabs Ed by the hand and pulls him up the stairs to his room. Ed seems hopeful but not entirely certain what to make of this, until Devon goes to his drawer, unearths the sign he hid there all those months ago, turns around, and holds it up for Ed to read. _I LOVE YOU_ , it says back, mirroring Ed's own, and Ed grins like a secret dance party, like a stingray baseball team, like a guy who loves Devon just as much as Devon loves him, and kisses him. 

Devon cannot believe this is happening. He is just this weird kid who gets all worked up over Twilight and stingrays and the boy next door, of all things, and how embarrassingly cliche is that? Ironic, too, because Ed is one of the least cliche people Devon knows. Star baseball player, could be the most popular guy in school, and yet he wants to communicate by, like, pseudo-semaphore with a klutz like Devon, and never makes Devon feel weird for not knowing anything about baseball, and has completely shameless dance parties with Devon through their windows, and understood about --

“--the stingrays, ’s so hot--”

“Wait -- what?” says Ed, and _crap_ , Devon actually said that out loud. “Stingrays -- hot -- are you trying to tell me you have a stingray fetish? Because I gotta tell you, man, your kink is okay but--”

"Oh god, no. No no no no," says Devon. "You know what, I don't actually think I'm capable of coherent speech right now, so -- uh, how about I explain that sometime later?"

"Yeah," Ed says a little breathlessly, "yeah, I can think of better uses for your mouth right now," and Devon kisses him again, just to prove it. 


End file.
